Partner Property
Marble Hill: Find out more about Marble Hill House & Park, or visit their website.
About the talk
When Marble Hill was built in the late 1720s, tea was the most fashionable refreshment in England. For Marble Hill’s first owner, Henrietta Howard, taking tea was not only an important part of her daily routine, it also provided opportunities for socialising, and for indulging her great passion for porcelain.
This talk will explore Henrietta’s collecting habits, as well as the ways in which tea-making permeated polite portraiture, particularly eighteenth-century ‘conservation pieces’ of families at the tea table.
About the speaker
Olivia Fryman is Curator of Collections and Interiors at English Heritage, with responsibility for Down House, Eltham Palace and Ranger’s House. She also worked on the re-presentation of Marble Hill. Olivia specialises in the study of late 17th and early 18th century material culture with particular focus on the royal court and the history of tea.